Trapped (8 page)

At first, it felt good to sit around and talk, in real chairs, in a room brighter and a little warmer than where we’d just been. But after a while, we all got kind of restless. We were like fish in a bowl. Sitting in here, looking out the window, only made that clearer. So one by one, we got up and found things to do.

“I’m completely bored,” Jason said to Pete and me at around two thirty or three. “I’m gonna go down and work on the kart.”

“Think there’ll be enough light?” I said.

“Should be,” said Jason. “It’s got those big windows, like in the caf.”

“Yeah,” said Pete, “and it’s right up against the back of the school. It’s got that, like, slope.”

He put his fingers together and speared them down at a forty-five-degree angle toward the floor. He meant that the snow would run down the slope that headed toward the playing fields.

“Maybe,” I said. “Could drift.”

“Well, I guess I’ll find out. Not asking you two to go anyway.”

“Good,” said Pete. “'Cause we’re not.”

I was a little annoyed at Pete for speaking for me like that, especially since he wasn’t really thinking about me when he did.
He was looking over at Julie, like he’d been doing in quick little glances since we all sat down.

It was kind of weird. Jason, Pete, and I were good friends, but a day in, it seemed like we were already getting on each other’s nerves a little. Maybe it was because we were all so crammed together. Maybe it was because there were girls here and that made us instant competitors. Or maybe it was because we were starting to realize that we might be in big trouble. Not the school kind of trouble, the real kind. Anyway, Jason got up and left.

“I’m gonna …” said Pete, nodding toward the girls at the front of the room.

“Go on over,” I said.

“Dude, come with me,” he said. He was sort of whispering now. That was dumb because it was guaranteed to draw the girls’ attention.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” I said, lowering my voice to match his, but trying to sound like I didn’t care one way or the other.

Pete turned his head toward the girls again. Maybe I should go over there with him, I thought. I might get a chance to talk to Krista. In fact, that was pretty much guaranteed, given that we were the only four left in here. But what would I say? Without even thinking about it, I reached up and touched the big, honking zit that was bubbling up under my right cheek. I’d felt the beginnings of it when I’d woken up that morning, but now it was bigger and hurt a little to touch.

I pulled my hand down just before Pete turned back.

“You go ahead,” I said. “Gonna hit the can.”

“Come on, Weems: wingman!”

“What do you want, man? Nature calls.”

I went to the bathroom and put a dot of Oxy on my zit. I was going to spread maybe a little more on the other cheek. For some reason, I tend to get really symmetrical zits. I have no idea why, but if I get one on the right side, I usually get one on the left side too, right around the same spot. I’m, like, a medical oddity. Maybe they should cut me up and study me. I heard the little flakes, icy again, scratching off the frosted glass of the bathroom window. Maybe they’d get the chance.

I looked down at the little rolled-up tube of Oxy. I pinched into the plastic in a few places. There wasn’t much left. I needed to save it for actual zits. The one on my cheek was going to be a monster, and there’d be others. My skin can barely go a day without betraying me.

When I went back, Pete was still sitting by himself in the middle of the room. I figured if I walked over there, we’d just pick up right where we left off, but it didn’t seem like I had a lot of options. I walked over and sat down, but Pete had something else he wanted to talk about.

I guess it was on everyone’s mind. “Jason’s dad, huh?” he said, leaning in. He was still whispering, but for a different reason, because the same conversation could apply to Krista’s mom. That was just one of the reasons we weren’t talking much about our parents. The other big one: We didn’t really know anything and had no way of finding out.

Obviously, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to anyone’s parents, but it’s natural to worry about your own family first. I couldn’t have talked to Jason or Krista about this, but I
was just glad that my mom hadn’t been on the road when it really started to come down. At least she wasn’t on the road as far as I knew. Which wasn’t far at all. We just didn’t know, and all talking about it would do was maybe piss off the others and make me sound like a mama’s boy.

But Pete’d brought it up, Jason wasn’t around, and Krista couldn’t hear. For ten minutes, we talked about our houses. We talked about how high they were, both two stories with a little bit more for the attic. We talked about food supplies and fireplaces. With teenagers to feed, both fridges were stocked full, but my mom was a little better off because there was just one of her.

“But they’re in town,” Pete was saying. “Things will be better in town.”

I’m sure he was right, but they’d still be snowed in without power. I didn’t really want to think about my mom sitting in the dark and living on Doritos, much less talk about it. I caught a break there. The emergency lights blinked back on in the hallway. I guess they were on a timer or some kind of off-again, on-again delay.

I got up to go look, and so did Krista. It was like one from each group. We got to the door at the same time and ducked our heads out into the hall to look. As we pushed through the door, our jackets brushed against each other, nylon on nylon, and my hand brushed her thigh. It was an accident or, I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t. In any case, it happened fast and she didn’t say anything. Across the hall, one room down, Elijah prairie-dogged his head out for a look and then ducked back in.

He’d sized it up like we all had. It was a huge waste, especially since you could tell just by looking that the power was running down. The light was duller now, less the bright yellow-white of last night and more a dull gold. With no power to recharge them, those old batteries wouldn’t last much longer.

As far as I knew, neither Les nor the girls had been planning to go downstairs, but they all headed down there now. It was just kind of an instinct, I guess, not to waste the electricity. And Julie’s mind must’ve kept going down that road, because just before we all split up, she said, “A radio.”

And she was right, there had to be a radio in here somewhere, just a little battery-powered thing. I thought I remembered hearing one in the office. It would have news and weather, but I guess the weather was the news at this point.

“I’ll go with you,” said Pete, and I swear Julie smiled, just a little, and just for a second, but still. Lucky dog.

“I’ll go to the caf,” I said, “bring back some more food.”

The others looked at me, sizing up the plan.

“We won’t want to go once it gets dark,” I added.

“Well, I guess I’ll help foodman here carry the stuff back, then,” said Krista. I’d sort of assumed she was going to go with Julie and Pete, but maybe she didn’t want to be a third wheel. Now she was going with me. Just like that, I went from being jealous of Pete to being kind of grateful.

“I guess we need the locksmith,” Pete said to Julie, and they made these matching “Uh-oh” expressions before heading over to Elijah’s room to get Les.

“Did I miss something?” Krista sort of whispered to me.

“Seriously,” I said, because I was thinking the same thing. It was like Pete and Julie were a couple already.

“Well, won’t that be cozy,” she said as we headed back down the stairs. “Just the three of them.”

I laughed, and I probably laughed harder than I should’ve because, you know, hot chick. But there was something else. The day before, I’d been half afraid just to be around Les. He’d seemed barely under control when the school was full and everything was in working order. And now, empty, with no rules and no one else his size? But a day in, we’d started to see him as just the kid who opened doors. It worked for us, and he seemed to like it.

Anyway, I had something else on my mind at the moment. I was alone with Krista for the first time, even if we were just fetching food.

“So, it’s Weems?” she said.

“Scotty is fine,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Good choice.”

We made a right at the bottom of the stairwell and headed toward the cafeteria. It was colder and darker down here now. It was like night had come early. The emergency lights were wasting their juice on the second floor, but they were the only reason we could see at all down on the first.

I’d made sure I was walking on Krista’s right, but I could see now that it wouldn’t matter much. Weak light is a zit’s best friend.

The snow reached the top of the windows now. It felt like being buried. The windows looked out on to nothing, as
if some idiot had installed waist-level windows in a basement. The light from the emergency lights faded in and out as we moved past one and toward another. It was gold now, piss-colored.

“Are these lights, you know?” said Krista.

“Yeah, it looks like it,” I said, and it did. It looked like the lights down here were weaker.

“Maybe they came back on sooner down here?” she said.

“Yeah, could be. Could be a different circuit or whatever. Or they could be older down here. The batteries could be further along. Or maybe it just seems that way because it’s, like, darker down here.”

“We should ask Jason,” she said. “When we see him.”

I guess it was pretty clear that I had no idea what I was talking about, that I was just thinking out loud again, but it still kind of stung.

“Lights’ll be out by then,” I said, and she moved a little closer to me as we walked. It was probably just instinct. No one wanted to be alone in the dark. It wasn’t much, just half a step in, but we touched as we turned the corner.

It was weird being down here with her. Nice, but weird. A day ago, I’d settled for staring at the back of her neck on the bus ride to school, but then, a day ago, there’d been no shortage of boys stealing looks at her. Now there was a shortage of boys, just in general. There was a shortage of boys, of girls — and of heat and light, for that matter. Her choices were down to going to the cafeteria to help me lug PB&J, hanging with spooky Elijah, or
sitting in an empty room and watching it dump snow on our heads for a second straight day.

I had this long talk with Jason about this once, and he said that chicks our age don’t think the same way: all about limited options and what you can get. We’d argued about it, because I think maybe they do. I think they’re just not as desperate about it. Anyway, what did the two of us know? I wasn’t dating anyone, and Jason was dating his go-kart.

So it wasn’t a date, and I knew that. And I knew she didn’t have many other options. Still, I was walking alone through a half-lit hallway with her. I knew she was cold, and for a second, I had a thought. Just after we bumped together rounding that corner, I thought about putting my arm around her. I’m not nearly smooth enough for that, and it probably would’ve been a disaster, so I didn’t. But just the thought of it — the thought and the opportunity, I guess — was enough to get me going.

The big double doors were still open when we got to the cafeteria, but the heating vent just outside there had died completely. This time I didn’t jump the counter: I felt around for the latch and lifted the counter up for Krista.

“After you,” I said.

Yeah, it was pathetic, but there was no one around to call me on it.

It wasn’t as bright in the kitchen now. The snow was farther up the windows and the sun was lower. We started with the coroner’s doors under the counters, but most of that stuff was canned. We wasted a good fifteen minutes looking for a can
opener that wasn’t huge and attached to the countertop. When we found one, it was about the size of a worn-down pencil. I guess everything had to be extreme in here: too big or too small.

We decided to go light on the canned stuff, because it was heavy and because it would take forever to open the ginormous cans with our little mini-opener. I also wasn’t too sure about that “syrup” everything was packed in. It was probably made from like horse bones and toxic waste.

Then we went into the walk-in fridge before the light got too dim. We took turns going in, handing her cell phone back and forth to use the glow from the screen as a light. It probably would’ve made more sense to have one person get more familiar with it, but we took turns because it was like we were playing a game. It was sort of like Hide ‘n’ Seek, except this one would’ve been called Find d’ Jelly. We didn’t take anything that needed to be cooked, but we did find some cold cuts that seemed safe. There was no mayo that we could find, but that was probably just as well.

Pretty soon we had all we could carry. Apparently, Krista wasn’t content just to be better looking than me. She had to be smarter too. She’d emptied out her backpack and brought it along. That hadn’t occurred to me, so I just had to grab as much stuff as I could and sort of cradle it all against my chest.

Anyway, it was fun. At one point, Krista was carrying the two jumbo-sized cans we’d picked as keepers: one of peaches and the other of chocolate pudding. That’s what you get when you let a freshman and a sophomore do your food shopping. So,
she’s leaning back and carrying them toward the counter and I go, “Man, you’ve got some big cans!”

And she was like, “And you’ve got some mysterious meat,” because I was holding something called Potted Meat Food Product.

We laughed, caught our breath, and then started laughing again. We left the meat product behind though. That stuff hadn’t even been refrigerated. Weird.

A few times, when it seemed to be going really well, I thought I should try something. My mind was like: make a move, make a move, make a move! Would I ever get a better opportunity?

“Krista?” I said.

“Yeah?”

We were just a few feet from each other….

“Regular or crunchy?” I said. I couldn’t quite pull the trigger.

“So, Scotty, you ever heard of a storm like this before?” Krista was asking.

“No, never. I mean, I know there are places in like Buffalo and Alaska where they get like sixty feet of snow a year. But that’s a full year.”

“Yeah, I know, but that’s nothing like this storm. This is like ten feet in a day.”

I was trying to figure out how many inches per hour that was, but between that and balancing all the stuff in my hands and talking, the numbers just flew out of my ears. “You ever been up there, to like Buffalo or wherever? It’s because of the lakes they get so much snow.”

I was vaguely aware that I was speaking like a third grader.

“I used to live there. Well, near there.”

“Seriously?” I said. Take that, third grade.

“Yeah, Watertown.”

“That’s pretty far north, right?”

“Yeah, and right near the lake. They should call it Snowtown. It’s like basically Canada.”

“You see any moose?” I said, and she laughed. I was amazed because no one seemed to get my dumb jokes.

“They’re called meese,” she said. “One moose, two meese.”

I let out a little snort of laughter. That was something I’d say too. And I was feeling pretty good right then. Like I’d forgotten about my zit, and I was feeling a lot more comfortable around her and not nearly as nervous. The only problem I really had was the ache in my shoulders from lugging the food.

And then we heard voices as we approached the bend in the hall, and it all came back. I remembered we were stuck in our high school and divided into these groups, and there were certain things you couldn’t say to certain people, and just the whole general tidal wave of crap. So much for the meese.

The light was murky when we turned the corner, but I already knew who it was. There was a weird echo in the hallway, but I could still make out the voice. It was Les, and my chest tightened a little. I was sort of getting more comfortable with him, but not down here in the dark. He was talking to Julie, and Pete was a few feet away. They were outside the nurse’s office.

I was just in the nurse’s office two weeks before. I didn’t remember there being a radio in there, but it turns out they already had the radio. It came into view a few steps later, dangling from Pete’s left hand. I guess they’d taken the one from the main office. I remembered it now. The secretary was always listening to it in the afternoons.

I was wondering what they were looking for in the nurse’s office. Then it hit me: blankets. So they were good scavengers, but things weren’t going well between the three of them.

“Hey, girl, wanna hold my tool?” said Les, holding out his door-opening gear. It was one of those comments that could be
funny or not, depending on who said it and how the girl took it. Or how her would-be boyfriend took it.

“Shut up, man,” Pete said, taking a step toward Les. Or, let me rephrase that: Taking a step toward the much larger guy who still had a hammer and a steel bolt in his hands and Lord knows what else in his pockets.

Uh-oh, I thought. Or maybe I actually said it, because just then all three of them looked over toward Krista and me. I guess it could’ve been the sound of our sneakers that gave us away.

Les looked over, sized us up, and then turned back toward Pete. He sort of cocked his head and looked at him, like dogs do when you make a noise they don’t understand. I guess it was disbelief, like: Did I hear that right? Did you just tell me to shut up?

Pete was standing his ground, but just barely. His feet were planted, but every other part of him was leaning back. He had this weird little look on his face, somewhere between the fear of what was about to happen and the acceptance that there was nothing much he could do about it.

“Hey, guys,” said Krista, acting like she didn’t see what was going on. “Whatcha doin'?”

I was waiting for Les to make a fist and use it, but he was pausing now to process the words. I was already picturing the effects of the punch and just hoping he kept the hammer out of it. Either way, I’d have to do something once it landed. I was having trouble thinking of anything that didn’t involve me dropping all this food, running in there, and getting my
clock cleaned too. Maybe I could get in one good shot with the peach can?

I was trying to come to terms with this kamikaze mission. Pete was my friend: I had to do it. But sometimes it’s like, Thank God there are girls around, you know? This was one of those times. Krista just kept at it. “Hey,” she said. “Hey!”

Finally, Les looked back in her direction.

“Hey, Les,” she said. “Hey, Jules.”

She didn’t mention Pete, and I guess that snub was like a victory for Les or something? I don’t know. I don’t know where girls learn this stuff. I do know you can’t underestimate the power of a pretty girl’s voice on a teenage boy, no matter how tough he is. Krista was just a freshman, but she’d pretty clearly figured that out already.

Les sort of half turned toward her.

“What’s up?” she said.

He turned the rest of the way.

“How’s the treasure hunt going?” she continued.

“We found a radio.”

At first I assumed it must’ve been Pete who’d said that, but he was still standing there with that same expression on his face. It was Les.

“Show her, doughboy,” he said. Sometimes people called Pete that because his last name was Dubois. Realizing he wasn’t about to get crushed, Pete unfroze and raised the radio up into the uneven light.

“It’s got batteries, but the reception’s crap,” Les added.

“Maybe it’ll be better upstairs,” said Krista. “Where it’s less …”

“Buried,” I said. It seemed like about time to join the conversation.

“So whatcha doin’ here?” said Krista.

“Blankets?” I said. She looked over at me, like: Are you going to be completing my sentences from now on, or can I do that myself? But it didn’t seem like a bad thing.

“Yeah,” said Les. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

And that was another sentence that could be taken either way, but I took a chance and said, “I don’t know. I can look pretty dumb….”

And he laughed, and there was just no meanness in it at all, and all of a sudden I was like, Holy crap. Because I’d just realized something about Les, about the kind of trouble he got into and why. Now I understood how he could share a room with Elijah and not rip that scrawny little dude into scraps.

I looked over at Krista because she’d already realized this, and I was just like, How? How on earth would you know that? When did you even deal with this guy before? And she looked back at me, and her look just said: Boys are ridiculous.

For the record, I’ve never denied that.

“Well, let’s get to it,” she said. “Those lights aren’t getting any brighter.”

And they weren’t. I wondered how much longer they’d last. Another day, maybe? I guess it depended on when they shut off again. I heard a pop and looked over. Les had knocked the cylinder out of the door lock with one shot.

I walked over to Pete and fake punched him in the gut. It was one of our ways of saying hello. I was just saying, I’m here, man. He gave me a weak little smile.

Les pushed the door open and we all filed in. The nurse’s office was a gold mine.